In the welcome weeks of the school year, my main goal is to get to know my students. Another goal, is for my students to make the connection that in order to achieve any hopes and dreams they might have for the year, we must create a safe space that encourages risk-taking and accepts mistakes. At the school I currently teach at, we have 5 Core Values: honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, and compassion. These core values are what students live by to represent the school’s mission. But how do you create a class space where each of these values is the norm? 

To start off this mini-unit for the welcome weeks of school, we talked about culture as a class. We brainstormed what we think of when we think of the word culture and came up with a class definition for the word. My classes definition was “traditions and behavior that is passed on within a group of people.” With this definition, we determined that a culture could apply to a smaller group or community, like we have in the classroom. I next wrote up the following 5 statements, each on a separate large sheet paper throughout the room. 

1. Write what color a culture of compassion reminds you of and why (use that color!).

2. Draw an image that shows what a culture of respect looks lik

3. Describe a time that you were responsible or saw someone else being responsible.

4. Write a short phrase you would hear in a culture of honesty.

5. Draw a symbol that you believe represents a culture of fairness. 

Having the students rotate through these posters in small groups and write down their ideas in this visible thinking exercise really paid off. The students were creative in their responses, had rationale for their ideas, and were open about their experiences. As a wrap-up to this activity, I gave each student a sticky-note. I told them that on that sticky note they were to write down one idea from someone else that they liked from any one of the posters.  When we gathered back together as a class, the kids shared the one idea they liked out-loud. Each student then stuck his or her sticky-note  on the front board. We used these sticky notes as a tool in helping us build our class essential agreement.